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Mists of Pandaria Beta: The best Brann Bronzebeard appearance ever

Ordinarily, an appearance by Brann Bronzebeard is a recipe for disaster. The dwarf with a penchant for pursuing the past has a habit of meddling with artifacts and devices that simply shouldn't be touched. And although Brann always seems to set matters straight in the nick of time, it's usually a hassle to get him to that point.

Well, Brann's back in Mists of Pandaria, but this time he's not meddling with Titan computers or even out roaming Pandaria. Instead, he's waiting for you in the Lorewalkers area above Mogu'shan Palace, and he's out to make archaeology far less annoying.

In Mists of Pandaria, players can collect either pandaren or mogu fragments. More fragments are available per site, and occasionally you'll spawn an Ancient Haunt that will give you even more fragments as well. You can solve the fragments to create various items, including plenty of gray-quality vendor trash -- but you don't want to vendor these items. They also include an on-use effect. When you click the item, you can crate the restored artifact. Each archaeology puzzle you solve will give you a new artifact that you can either vendor or crate.

But what's the point of all these crates? Well, that's where Brann steps in. Brann is selling crates of archaeology fragments from every other section of archaeology. You can purchase them for one crated artifact apiece, provided your archaeology level is 600. Want more Tol'vir fragments? Solve puzzles in Pandaria and buy them from Brann. In other words, you can solve puzzles from Azeroth, Northrend, and Outland simply by solving puzzles in Pandaria and purchasing fragments from Brann.

Sound good? Well, it gets even better. If you aren't happy with where your dig sites are located in Pandaria, Brann sells an item called the Lorewalker's Map. This will randomize your digsites to new locations. And if you're tired of flying around looking for digsites, you can pick up the Lorewalker's Lodestone, which will teleport you to a random active digsite in Pandaria. Both of these items cost five crated artifacts each, and you can carry up to 20 at a time.

Between the speed boosts, the fragment boosts, and now the additional methods of gathering fragments, archaeology in Pandaria is going to be a painless process -- with the added bonus of helping you nab all those rares you're missing from other archaeology areas, too! Check out the gallery for a look at Brann's list of wares.

It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!